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Tyre MacAdmin · Jul 21, 2006, 01:28 AM

Just an FYI for all those G4 users out there. I've had the dual 1.8Ghz G4 upgrade from GigaDesigns for about 1 year now. Up until 2 days ago I've had to keep the G4 workstation door open to keep the system from over heating and crashing.

I have now under-clocked the system to 1.4Ghz and it *seems* to now be stable with the door closed. (I'll let you know in the morning if it's still running... the system at 1.8ghz was crashing every 4 hours or so. Hopefully this has completely fixed that problem.)

In any event, I wish the system was stable at 1.8ghz since that is what I paid for. I am currently looking for a workaround... in the form of a bigger heatsink that I can refit the cpu card with.

This is a G4 Digital Audio system. If you intend to upgrade yours bare in mind this before buying one.

bossep · Jul 21, 2006, 07:58 AM

What do GigaDesigns reply when telling them about your situation? I have a Sonnet as you know. No problems at all.

harrisjamieh · Jul 21, 2006, 08:27 AM

Can't you just shove a big ass fan in there? (being unfamiliar with the G4 PMs, I dont know..)

PB2K · Jul 21, 2006, 08:52 AM

drill extra holes in the powersupply and in the back of the case, and leave the frontbay for the 3.5" out

bytheway, i have 2 fans on top of my Dual 1.33Ghz, they blow air onto the heatsink

Lateralus · Jul 21, 2006, 10:48 AM

Have you reported the overheating to GigaDesigns? It is definitely not regular.

Over the course of the past two years I've had two Dual 1.8GHz Giga upgrades, both in Digital Audios. Both were running at 100% CPU 24/7 for months on end, one of them further overclocked to 1.87GHz.

I can see maybe having to downclock them to 1.73GHz, but any lower than that is definitely not something that should be necessary. Certainly not as low as 1.4GHz.

What you are experiencing is definitely not the norm.

Tyre MacAdmin · Jul 21, 2006, 04:46 PM

Well it's seems to be running fine now at 1.4ghz. I will report it to gigadesigns since my upgrade will most certainly not run anything like yours have... even with the door wide open.

mac1896 · Jul 21, 2006, 11:48 PM

Originally Posted by Tyler McAdams

Just an FYI for all those G4 users out there. I've had the dual 1.8Ghz G4 upgrade from GigaDesigns for about 1 year now. Up until 2 days ago I've had to keep the G4 workstation door open to keep the system from over heating and crashing.

I have now under-clocked the system to 1.4Ghz and it *seems* to now be stable with the door closed. (I'll let you know in the morning if it's still running... the system at 1.8ghz was crashing every 4 hours or so. Hopefully this has completely fixed that problem.)

In any event, I wish the system was stable at 1.8ghz since that is what I paid for. I am currently looking for a workaround... in the form of a bigger heatsink that I can refit the cpu card with.

This is a G4 Digital Audio system. If you intend to upgrade yours bare in mind this before buying one.

I am in the exact same boat.

I have to run my DA with the door open about 1/4 of the way.

If you change out the heatsink, I believe you'll void the warranty. If you don't care about the warranty, and want it to run cooler, personally, I'd try liquid cooling it (I've wanted to try it on mine for a while now).

Similar thread here:

http://www.macgurus.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22201

mac1896 · Jul 21, 2006, 11:55 PM

Originally Posted by Lateralus

snip

Over the course of the past two years I've had two Dual 1.8GHz Giga upgrades, both in Digital Audios. Both were running at 100% CPU 24/7 for months on end, one of them further overclocked to 1.87GHz.

snip

How did you get it up to 1.87GHz ????????

Jumper changes?

I don't care about the warranty !!

Just tell me !!

Please.........!!

bossep · Jul 22, 2006, 05:42 AM

Would you recommend someone with a 1.2GHz L3 to upgrade to dual 1.8 without L3?

waxcrash · Jul 22, 2006, 02:26 PM

This thread jinxed my computer.

I was reading this thread last night and had to drop the kids off at the pool. I come back to my computer and I find that it is turned off. I'm running an upgraded Gigabit G4 with a Giga Designs dual 1.4Ghz with a Radeon 9800 Pro. I hit the power button and it won't turn on. I let it sit for about a half hour and it powers up but only runs for about 10 minutes and then shuts down. Turns out the fan in the power supply doesn't spin anymore. I assume my CPU, graphics card, and two hard drives put too big of a strain on the 338 watt power supply.

Tyre MacAdmin · Jul 22, 2006, 04:58 PM

Sorry waxcrash! did not mean to jinx you. The only thing I can conclude is that I have a processor card that is not suitable to run at 1.8ghz. Either that's too fast for the cpu's I got or there is something wrong with my cpus. I will contact GigaDesigns and let them know about it.

PB2K · Jul 23, 2006, 07:43 AM

I have some news as well :

I toasted my powerlogix 1.33Ghz Dual. First it started crashing, then my USB input devices didn't get power anymore. Ok so I reboot. Then I smelled smoke, but couldn't identify the origin, so I opened up the powermacs case, and smelled smoke coming out of the processor..

****

I replaced it with a 533 mhz processor and thats why i am able to write this post. Djeez this g4 is wasted, it's so slow!!!!!! Well, guess I will have to buy a new computer

chatam · Jul 23, 2006, 07:58 AM

I am a bit reluctant to report this, as I am completely satisfied otherwise with the overall performance of my Gigadesigns 2 x 1,8 7447A upgrade.

Upon installation on my 2001 733 QS G4 this winter and following to repeated freezes, and misbootings, I mailed assistance and decided to move the jumpers as instructed in order to reduce the speed to 1,6 Mhz.

No problems ever since, with the machine up 24/7 and performances undreamable of before.

PB2K · Jul 23, 2006, 07:59 AM

problems started since i installed a Gforce 2 32mb videocard !

PB2K · Jul 23, 2006, 09:28 AM

As you might notice, the small black box near the sticker caught fire, interesting enough, the identical small box underneath it started to crack as well. The lower small box shows no sign of damage.

Do you think this is still repairable? I know a guy who is a genius with electronics.

Tyre MacAdmin · Jul 23, 2006, 03:00 PM

Well i wrote GigaDesigns this:

Support:

I bought my dual 1.8ghz upgrade about one year ago. Since then my G4 Digital Audio has only been usable with the door opened so that the cpu would not overheat and the system crash. In the last month things have been exceedingly unstable and I decided to under clock my system via the jumpers to 1.4ghz. At this speed the system seems to be completely stable and I can now use the system with the door closed. After submitting a thread at Macnn I have found that some people's systems run completely fine at 100% cpu utilization even over clocked to 1.87ghz... while others like me have this issue. I am writing you to see if there is anything that can be done for me since I paid for a 1.8ghz solution and would like to be able to run my system at the spec. Perhaps it's the cpus and they are not capable to run at 1.8ghz.

Thanks,

C. Tyler McAdams

I'm hoping they will send me a new cpu card that runs better.

ChrisB · Jul 23, 2006, 07:12 PM

I'm an owner of a single 1.4Ghz Gigadesigns upgrade for my 400Mhz Sawtooth. I had the same overheating problems as well. I've had to run the system with the door open for over a year now. It works great, but it's very poor engineering. I have a full system, so I have no room for a new fan. I'm about to install a new ATI 9800 AGP Pro as well. So I have to figure out a way to put a new power supply in as well.

Lateralus · Jul 23, 2006, 08:27 PM

You'll find that the overheating problem is one caused more by Apple than by anybody else. The El Capitan series of cases has the worst cooling of any mid-size case I have ever seen.

One thing you both might want to try is reversing the direction of the case's 120mm fan so that it's pushing air in rather than sucking it out. Should bring down the ambient temperature a bit.

That said, I've had four Giga upgrades; A single 1.47GHz/L3, a Dual 1.33GHz/L3 and two Dual 1.8GHz/512K-L2 and I had excellent experiences with all of them.

Tyre MacAdmin · Jul 23, 2006, 08:32 PM

Chris I imagine your single 1.4ghz came with a aluminum heatsink instead of a copper one. I think you would be ok if you had a copper one.

I don't know about you but I hate running my system with the door open. What if I spill a drink? Hasta la Vista!

It seems that if GigaDeisgns would just beef up the heatsink there would be no issues. Like one that the MMD G4's come with... heat pipes... etc

Tyre MacAdmin · Jul 23, 2006, 08:36 PM

Originally Posted by Lateralus

You'll find that the overheating problem is one caused more by Apple than by anybody else.

I would agree completely with you if it were not that my 1.8's were overheating with the door wide open in a cool room.

Lateralus · 08:59 PM

Well, okay then... Maybe it's Giga's fault.

I'd agree that there shouldn't be an overheating problem with Chris' upgrade so long as the heatsink is copper and not aluminium. A single 7455 in the 1.4GHz range doesn't produce enough heat to overheat under a copper heatsink. If it's unstable even with a copper heatsink I'd suspect that the reason for the instability runs deeper than simple overheating.

Back to your 1.8GHz Dual; One of the main reasons the defect rate among the higher clocked Dual 7447 upgrades is so high across all the manufacturers is because there is much more sensitivity involved with overclocking two processors than there is with clocking one.

The 1.8GHz upgrades are already very highly overclocked, nearly all of them having been initially based off of 1.42GHz rated parts. Even if one of the two processors can handle a high overclock over an extended period of time, the other may not be able to. The safest way to ensure that you're throwing two equally capable processors on a PCB is to make sure that they both came from the same yield, but as far as I know there isn't any guaranteed way of knowing that they did and even if there were there'd still be a lot of uncertainty about them being equally capable.

I'm not sure Freescale is charging anywhere near as much for the 1.67GHz rated 7447As as they used to so I'd wager that most of the newer upgrades are based on those parts. And even if they're not, Freescale moved to the second revision of the 7447A last year, the 7447B. So even if upgrades are still based off of 1.42GHz rated parts, they should be more stable at overclocked speeds so long as they're 7447Bs.

Don Pickett · Jul 23, 2006, 10:03 PM

Originally Posted by PB2K

I have some news as well :

I toasted my powerlogix 1.33Ghz Dual. First it started crashing, then my USB input devices didn't get power anymore. Ok so I reboot. Then I smelled smoke, but couldn't identify the origin, so I opened up the powermacs case, and smelled smoke coming out of the processor..

****

I replaced it with a 533 mhz processor and thats why i am able to write this post. Djeez this g4 is wasted, it's so slow!!!!!! Well, guess I will have to buy a new computer

FWIW: My Powerlogix CPU upgrade for my Pismo never worked right, and is now dead.

Tyre MacAdmin · Jul 23, 2006, 11:53 PM

Originally Posted by Lateral

usnearly all of them having been initially based off of 1.42GHz rated parts..

Ah ha. So I really don't even have a dual 1.8ghz cpu card then do I? That would explain how their completely and totally running fine (like a dream I might add) at 1.4ghz.

Isn't that sort of false advertising? I mean I never saw anywhere that these chips are "overclocked". All I ever saw was they were a dual 1.8ghz upgrade.

ChrisB · Jul 24, 2006, 12:46 PM

Well I'm having to put in a new power supply as I'm installing an ATI 9800 Pro AGP here in a few days. So I'm starting to wonder if there is a way to get that new fan installed somewhere. I still need to find a 400W power supply that will be compatible with my Mac.

mac1896 · Jul 24, 2006, 05:12 PM

Originally Posted by ChrisB

snip. I still need to find a 400W power supply that will be compatible with my Mac.

http://www.nextro.com/shop/catalog/d...?cPath=1_27_28

Tyre MacAdmin · Jul 24, 2006, 05:14 PM

If you have a Digital Audio G4 you don't need a new psu. My 9800 Pro works fine with the stock one.

As for the cooling I've heard of people who have taking the mono speaker out of the front of thier Digital Audio's and put a small fan there to suck in cool air.

ChrisB · Jul 24, 2006, 05:32 PM

Is that one from Nextro compatible with a Sawtooth G4? That's what I have.

mac1896 · Jul 24, 2006, 08:37 PM

Originally Posted by ChrisB

Is that one from Nextro compatible with a Sawtooth G4? That's what I have.

The page won't break if you decide to look through it a bit..........

http://www.nextro.com/shop/catalog/d...?cPath=1_27_36

PCI and AGP power supplies.

waxcrash · Jul 24, 2006, 09:36 PM

Originally Posted by mac1896

The page won't break if you decide to look through it a bit..........

http://www.nextro.com/shop/catalog/d...?cPath=1_27_36

PCI and AGP power supplies.

That site looks so shady.

ChrisB · Jul 24, 2006, 10:14 PM

Found what I was looking for. Now I just have to come up with the $$$

mac1896 · Jul 24, 2006, 11:27 PM

Originally Posted by waxcrash

That site looks so shady.

Appearances can be deceiving.

Microsoft website for example...........

Why not start a new thread asking if anyone has ever done business with Nextro before ?

PB2K · Aug 11, 2006, 02:44 AM

my powerlogix dual 1.33ghz is being fixed by a friend